
1 



REVEALED RELIGION. 



DUDLEIAN LECTURE, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY AT CAMBRIDGE, 

Wednesday, May 10, 1848. 



By Rev. SAMUEL GILMAN, D. D. 






B OSTON: 
WM. CROSBY & H. P. NICHOLS, 



111 Washington Street. 
1848. 







CAMBRIDGE! 

METCALF AND COMPANY; 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 






.Gr* 



DUDLEIAN LECTURE 



A glance at the existing condition of theological litera- 
ture, and at the actual posture of religious life and devel- 
opment, will attest the instinctive sagacity of that excellent 
man who contemplated these continuous annual discussions. 
1\ early one hundred years have rolled away since he entailed 
upon posterity the consideration of those great constituent 
themes that filled his own mind, — Natural Religion, — Re- 
vealed Religion, — the Corruptions of the Church of Rome, 
— and the Validity of Presbyterian Ordination. Brilliant, in 
the mean time, as have been the discoveries of science, excit- 
ing and successful as has been the race after physical advan- 
tages, yet they have neither absorbed nor diluted the intense 
interest with which these spiritual questions have come down 
invested to the present generation. As the horizon of the 
human mind widens, these subjects still seem to find an ap- 
propriate and prominent place in the picture. Science has 
brought, and is still bringing, to view, in the domain of Nat- 
ural Religion, an immense mass of new and before unimagin- 
ed materials, out of which the Bridgewater Treatises alone 
have erected a magnificent intellectual temple to a design- 
ing and benevolent Creator. The refined and daring schools 
of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon, with the coarser one of 
Paine, have within the same period arisen, flourished, and 
decayed, and although they appear indirectly rather to have 
stimulated and strengthened, than to have extinguished, the 
faith of nations, yet much of their direct influence and leav- 
en still exists in various forms, both in the secret, timid 
heart, and on the fearless, defying lip. The cause of Papal 
Rome, which in Paul Dudley's day was in a lower condition 
than it had known for a thousand years, and which, espe- 
cially in America, possessed scarcely the importance of a 
shadow, has since slowly raised its head from slumber, has 



assumed both in the Old and New Worlds fresh life and vig- 
or, and is even winning back some departments of Protes- 
tantism itself into its own antique vitality. At the same 
time, the principle of Protestantism, on the other hand, is 
rising to a corresponding elevation of claim, and a still higher 
degree of activity. A number of its sects, which, a hundred 
years ago, had either not started into existence, or were con- 
fined to the upper chambers of colleges or a few scattered 
conventicles, have, within that period, expanded into world- 
renowned denominations, with their own imposing organiza- 
tions, legislatures, hierarchies, and literatures. The most 
enlightened, together with the humblest and obscurest of the 
laity, examine and decide for themselves in regard to every 
religious subject, with an independence of judgment which 
would have startled the boldest of their fathers. The aver- 
sion of the disciples of Fox to forms and ceremonies of 
every kind, as well as to ordination by the presbytery, has 
been inherited by many who bear little other resemblance to 
that unique denomination. The German schools of philoso- 
phy and criticism have carried their speculations to the ex- 
treme aim of removing the partitions which divide Inspira- 
tion from Reason, — Nature from Revelation. The very 
Gospels which Dudley held in his hands, and perused as 
records of historical reality, have been theoretically reduced 
to dissolving and impalpable myths ; and even if allowed not 
to be myths, their importance has been set aside by the as- 
sumption, that the religion they embodied and taught is capa- 
ble of sufficient development by the unassisted powers of 
human nature. The mystic visions of the Swedish seer, and 
the magniloquent utterances of the Mesmeric oracle, have 
been able to attract their respective multitudes of implicit 
devotees. The Mormon doctrine of a Bible dug from the 
earth has found its twelve apostles, who scatter themselves 
successfully over the world, and build up communities that 
adhere together with a tenacity defying the severest measures of 
persecution and extermination. In the midst of all this, there 
still exist, as of old, large masses of inert ignorance that wait 
to be illumined, and larger masses of indifference that ought 
to be awakened. — Such are the varied spirit and tendencies 
of the current age in reference to religion ; and who shall 
say that the mission of the Dudleian Lecture has become a 
dead letter, or that it has not ample work marked out for 
centuries yet to come ? 



The subject in course for the present year is Revealed 
Religion. I have a few words to offer, explanatory of my 
feelings and design in approaching the discussion. On re- 
ceiving, in my distant sphere of labor, the unexpected invita- 
tion to deliver the present lecture, I shrank from a compli- 
ance, under the sincere conviction that I could positively 
produce nothing on the subject worth bringing a thousand 
miles to an emporium already largely supplied. Accus- 
tomed, for many years, to enforce upon others by excursive, 
desultory illustrations those duties that imply and. presuppose 
a revelation from God, I felt afraid of doing injustice to a 
theme which more than any other is likely to be damaged by 
inadequate treatment. I could have wished for an earlier 
period of life, to bestow upon it what vigor and concentration 
of mind I might ever have commanded. But at length, over 
these and other restraining considerations the voice and sum- 
mons of the "Fair Mother" prevailed ; for I must pro- 
nounce her name in that Saxon English through which gush 
up for us more tender and beautiful associations than through 
the smoothest terms of a foreign tongue. Since she com- 
manded, I scarcely felt at liberty to disobey. Advancing 
years, also, could form no- valid motive for refusal, while I 
adverted to the reminiscence that the first lecturer on Re- 
vealed Religion in this course, and an efficient one he proved 
to be, was the venerable John Barnard, of Marblehead, at 
the age of seventy-five ! I thought, moreover, that I ought 
to be willing, at any time of day, to sound the depths of that 
faith which I was preaching to others ; to go down and ex- 
amine, face to face, the nature of that hidden foundation, 
along which, while fording the mingled waters of life, my 
own belief, at least, bad ever felt its footing secure. I had 
not been inattentive nor indifferent to the various aspects 
which this great question has assumed in modern theological 
literature. It seemed to me that in a multitude of minds 
there exists, with regard to the fact and truth of a Divine 
revelation, a strong though indistinct belief, resembling those 
invisible pictures which the sunlight impresses upon the sensi- 
tive preparation of the photographer. And as various chem- 
ists have each contributed a new process or agent to develop 
and fix the mystic image on the view, why might not some 
suggestion of mine assist the efforts of abler advocates of 
revelation to bring out into lasting day the sacred portraiture 
of faith enstamped on the soul ? Therefore, with an earnest 
1 * 



prayer in my heart for aid, aware of the many peculiar diffi- 
culties that environ the subject, and knowing how much I 
risk from the double imputation of presumption and failure, 
I have come to the spot whence sprang the most cherished 
impulses of my being, with this humble contribution, — it 
may be, this serious sacrifice, — to be surrendered, in the 
language of Dudley's own will, providing for his foundation 
in Harvard College, " as a poor thank-offering to God from 
his unworthy servant, for his many and great mercies to me 
in my education at that college." 

I propose confining myself to a single line of argument, 
defending merely the fact of a positive, special, supernatural 
revelation, in accordance with the all but universal belief of 
the religious portion of mankind. At the same time, I desire 
distinctly to premise, that I shall fearlessly accept, through- 
out, the challenge of the rationalistic and other opponents of 
that belief, conforming myself to their favorite method of 
scientific investigation, — meeting, as well as I can, the cur- 
rent theories of our day, and seeking directly, among the 
elements and history and consciousness of human nature 
itself, and the visible works of God, for the confirmation of 
my positions. 

By the term Revelation, as used throughout this essay, 
I wish particularly to be considered as implying only a sys- 
tem of special impulses from God for the moral and spiritual 
development of man. Into any controverted topics, as to 
the entire contents and character of Revelation, I shall not 
enter. Their natural place would come after the establish- 
ment of the general fact. My design will be accomplished, 
if 1 can make it appear that certain lights and tendencies 
have been communicated to the world, which cannot be re- 
solved into any established order of nature. 

Two preliminary objections, however, against the idea of 
any special revelation at all, the one of a popular, and the 
other of a philosophical description, require here to be con- 
sidered and averted. The first arises from a consideration 
of the effects which have actually been produced, and it 
takes this form : — If the Deity have really revealed himself 
to mankind, why has so large a portion of the race never yet 
become acquainted with the event ? — why, of the numbers 
whose attention it has succeeded in attracting, have so many 
entertained widely variant opinions respecting it ? — and why 
should even academical lectureships be deemed necessary to 



demonstrate and recommend it to the world ? In reply to 
these inquiries, let it be observed, that, although Revelation 
be an extraordinary gift of God, although its effects be 
specific and unparalleled, and although its original intro* 
duction, as I trust will be shown, was attended by supernat- 
ural direction, yet its modes of operation and its channels of 
influence need not, in many respects, be different from those 
of his ordinary gifts. Suppose, for instance, the general 
power of healing, which is perhaps more analogous to the 
avowed object of a revelation than any other, had been 
Divinely communicated to mankind thousands of years ago ; 
nevertheless, the art itself might still have remained, as we 
now find it, over immense spaces of the earth, in the lowest 
condition; — where it had made the greatest progress, it 
might have given rise, as now, to innumerable theories and 
sects, and the conquests it had effected might still have 
been but slowly progressive, and oftentimes far distant from 
each other. In like manner, if the art of legislation, whose 
offices also are strictly analogous to many offices of a revela- 
tion, had been Divinely communicated, it might still, as now, 
have remained in its infancy, and the blessings of human law, 
especially its aid in the education of nations, might have been 
as limited and precarious as ever. Now, on the supposition 
that Divine legislation or Divine interposition has been actually 
introduced for the education and benefit of mankind, why 
should not the progressive effects of that also be partial and 
precarious ? What right have we to expect that they should 
be immediately universal ? Gold, certainly, may be added 
to the brass and silver coin already in use, and exert the hap- 
piest effects on commerce, without disturbing in the least the 
established laws of circulation. The execution of the designs 
of the Deity is generally gradual, deliberate, and liable to 
various interruptions. Such are his processes in the forma- 
tion of the material worlds, — such is the economy of all vege- 
table and animal life, — such the course of Divine Providence 
in the destinies of our race, — and such the progress of every 
great truth and influence, when dropped from any quarter 
among the experiences of mankind. The doctrines of Natu- 
ral Religion itself are liable to the same conditions, both in 
the speculative and the practical impressions which they make 
upon men's minds. Why, then, should we not accept the 
idea of a Divine revelation on the same conditions ? Indeed, 
no others seem consistent with the flexible and imperfect 



8 

nature, the sublunary circumstances, of man. Unless it be 
the appropriate office of a revelation to destroy our free will 
and free action altogether (a theory that I frankly repudiate 
in the outset), we cannot necessarily predicate of it an imme- 
diate or universal reception. — Thus the preliminary popular 
objection in question vanishes before this statement of the 
case. At all events, it shall not and ought not to deter us 
from looking at the positive side of the question, and instead 
of asking, why has Revelation done no more, inquiring 
whether it has not actually done infinitely more than any 
other existing moral cause, and whether certain effects that 
have been produced can be traced to any besides special, 
supernatural influences. 

As for the more philosophical objection against a revela- 
tion, so long and variously agitated, which is founded on the 
alleged impossibility of a violation of the order of Nature, 
I consider it placed in abeyance, at least in the existing state 
of science, by the geological discoveries of the present day. 
Those discoveries have demonstrated that the order of Na- 
ture is not so uniform, as to preclude distinct and successive 
interpositions of creative power, whenever the earth was pre- 
pared for new species and genera of animals. This argu- 
ment of the school of Hume, as to the unchanging uniformity 
of Nature, would indeed have been countenanced by facts, 
had the theory of the very able author of the " Vestiges of 
Creation," respecting the self-development of the whole ani- 
mal world out of a single original germ, received support 
from the general testimony of Nature. But no one can rise 
from the inspection of those reports which the most eminent 
geologists have published regarding fossil remains in succes- 
sive layers of the earth, without an irresistible conviction, that 
new, specific, and original impulses of designing and creating 
power have from time to time interposed to change the pre- 
existing order of things, and substitute another in its place. 

The idea, I am aware, has been advanced, that there ex- 
ists in the material, inorganic elements connected with our 
globe itself, when subjected to certain changes and new con- 
ditions, an inherent power of producing tribes of organized and 
animated beings. But such a supposition rests on no estab- 
lished analogy or fact within the present experience or mem- 
ory of the human race, and must be dismissed as altogether 
gratuitous and unphilosophical. The whole tendency of 
philosophical observation and discovery at the present day is 



against the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Hume, him- 
self, assuredly, could not have appealed to the testimony of 
experience to show that a single animal or plant was ever 
produced by a new combination of the elements. The only 
exception to the contrary on record has been the supposed 
production, in our own day, of certain winged insects by the 
action of electricity on flint ; but the experiment seems nei- 
ther to have been fortified by repetition (an essential rule of 
inductive evidence), nor to have been conducted under cir- 
cumstances implying the absolute necessity of admitting a 
novel formation. I conclude, therefore, on this point, that 
the alleged uniformity of Nature disappears before facts and 
analogies placed by Nature itself under our very eyes. It will 
fall, however, in our way, in the sequel, to combat this cele- 
brated objection on entirely different grounds. 1 proceed to 
the examination more immediately commanding our attention. 
The student, then, of the religious history of our race, in 
glancing from the present to the past, cannot but observe 
that that history is divided into three grand and deeply marked 
eras or periods, as different in their characteristics from each 
other as are the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds. The 
characters of each preceding era may, indeed, be found in- 
volved in the one that succeeds, and to constitute, as it were, 
a basis on which a new and higher structure has been super- 
imposed, somewhat as inorganic matter is the basis of an 
entirely dissimilar vegetable life, and as the properties of 
vegetable life coincide with the lower properties only of 
animal life. There may, moreover, be perceived in each 
preceding era dawnings and symptoms of the succeeding, like 
those embryonic anticipations and archetypes by which it has 
been discovered that one species of the animal world has her- 
alded another in the order of creation. The three religious 
eras, which thus distinctly strike the mind, are those of Idol- 
atry, Pure Theism, and Christianity. Seizing the most 
prominent feature of each, 1 would characterize the first as 
the era of a dark, blind sense of Divine power ; the second, 
as the era of light ; the third, as the era of love. In the first, 
1 see the great body of mankind paying to finite causes, visi- 
ble or invisible, — to the idol, the vegetable, the brute ani- 
mal, the celestial luminary, the hero, the fairy, the genius, 
the god and goddess, and other objects of the same general 
class, — a religious homage or recognition, accompanied in 
the main by a low, loose, precarious, indefinite system of 



10 

morals. The spirit of this era is now, and has for a long 
time been, exhibiting unequivocal manifestations of decline 
and ultimate extinction ; a fact, by the way, which may go 
far to obviate the objection before noticed, respecting the 
alleged inefficiency of Revelation. In the second period, 
I behold introduced into a single race, to which the Hebrew 
nation belonged, a principle directly antagonistic to the entire 
idolatrous principle ; the idea of one spiritual Creator, claim- 
ing and receiving for himself alone the devotion which had 
hitherto been lavished on a vast multitude of inferior objects. 
I behold, in the writings of the Old Testament, a national 
literature founded on this dominant principle, and a record 
of institutions established to perpetuate it. I discern, too, 
the accompanying prevalence of a higher and stricter, though 
far from perfect, morality, and mainly enforced by positive 
external sanctions. In the third period, I behold the Deity 
proclaimed to mankind, and understood by still increasing 
multitudes, as cherishing a tender interest in every individual. 
I see inculcated and practised a more spiritual worship ; men 
brought into closer and more enlightened relations with the 
invisible and eternal world ; and a perfect morality, founded 
on motives of internal personal holiness and on the sentiment 
of a brotherhood with universal man. How intrinsically dif- 
ferent are these three periods from each other ! They hardly 
seem predicable of the same race of beings. I may not now 
dwell on and illustrate their respective characteristics, nor 
demonstrate their direct and indirect influences, their mutual 
action and reaction, nor account for apparent exceptions to 
the broad and general statement which has been made. But 
from the commanding point thus attained through general his- 
tory and experience, I must launch at once into the proposed 
stream of argument. 

The leading characteristics of the second and third of the 
eras just described I consider, for several reasons, as having 
originated from some kind of special, Divine interposition, 
entirely extraneous to the ordinary workings and principles of 
human nature. 

The first reason that impresses this conclusion on my 
mind is, that the religious phenomena of both those eras 
have been evolved through one of the smallest, obscurest, 
least cultivated, and in many respects least advantageously 
situated nations on the face of the earth ; in both cases, 
against the will and genius and leanings of the nation itself, 



11 

since all that a nation could do to perpetuate idolatry against 
the pure theism of the Mosaic institutions, and, subsequently, 
to resist and extinguish Christianity, was done by the Jewish 
people. Nevertheless, both classes of the phenomena in 
question, Mosaic and Christian, struggled up from the inmost 
bosom of the resisting nation itself, and overspread with their 
influences large portions of the world, in modes very different 
from the operation of ordinary natural causes. Now, even if 
but one of these two classes of events had been evolved 
through the medium of such a nation, I should have consid- 
ered the fact more than suggestive of a special Divine inter- 
position ; but when I see them both proceeding from the 
same nation in the modes that actually occurred, at far dis- 
tant periods, and especially when nothing in modern Egyp- 
tian discovery accounts for these impressions on the Hebrew 
mind, the conclusion comes home to me with all the weight 
of a moral demonstration. 

I am aware of a theory which attempts to set aside the 
force of this conclusion. The author of a " Discourse on 
Matters pertaining to Religion," whose eminent learning and 
abilities no difference in opinion, and no regret for what may be 
hasty and ill-considered in his compositions, can prevent me 
from cordially honoring, undertakes to account for the peculiar 
phenomena exhibited through the Hebrew nation, by ascrib- 
ing to the Semitish tribes a preeminently creative religious 
genius and superior religious tendencies.* But if this be 
correct, why did these tribes perpetually relapse into fe- 
tichism and polytheism, as this writer himself maintains in 
another part of his argument ?f Such was the case with the 
Israelites until after the Babylonish captivity, and with the 
Arabs down to the time of Mohammed, who found his coun- 
trymen idolaters. Moreover, have the Semitish tribes con- 
tinued to verify, to the present day, the glorious preeminence 
thus assigned them ? Have they caught, embodied, devel- 
oped, and perpetuated, the higher devotional qualities in- 
volved in the Christian religion, or have they not almost 
universally repudiated them, and was it not the non-Semitish 
races who immediately assumed this enviable function, and 
snatched from their rivals the crown of religious supremacy, 
with which they have been mistakenly endowed ? We cer- 
tainly can never again look to the Semitish tribes for new 

* Discourse, etc, p. 34. t Ibid. p. 93. 



12 

religious lights and impulses. Whatever Mr. D 'Israeli may 
imaginatively say in his romances, those portions of man- 
kind have lingered hopelessly behind their competitors in the 
spiritual race. But all this could not be, if the Semitish na- 
tions, sui generis, were born with higher capacities and ten- 
dencies for religious conceptions and attainments than any 
others. Seeing them in their present inferior religious con- 
dition, I am but riveted in the conclusion, that they were 
only employed as the medium of religious blessings by some 
power extraneous to nature. If I could grant that they were 
inherently more religious than any others, I should even then 
gain a valid argument for a supernatural revelation. For I 
see an influence, asserted to be inherent in them, at length 
forsaking them almost entirely, and transferred to races which 
it is conceded are naturally far less religious than the Semit- 
ish. In both these opposite sorts of cases, I see the alleged 
natural bent borne down, overcome, interchanged ; what but 
a supernatural interposition can solve the problem ? 

In the second place, this conclusion is very much corrob- 
orated, when, on further examining the original and authentic 
literary documents of the Jewish nation, I find these doc- 
uments themselves ascribing the phenomena in question to 
special Divine interpositions. The knowledge which they 
convey to us of the existence, character, agency, and will of 
the Deity, they do not profess to derive from human sources, 
but they frequently and expressly assert it to proceed from 
such as are supernatural. I acknowledge that their testimony 
alone is insufficient to establish the fact ; but the coincidence 
between their unvarying assertion and my previous unavoida- 
ble conclusion from solid historical verities, supported by the 
vast body of evidence in favor of their authenticity and truth, 
fastens the conviction with new strength on my mind. 

I turn now to a third and very different class of facts, but 
which still compel me, on entirely independent grounds, to 
the conclusion, that these great spiritual lights and moral in- 
fluences, which have proceeded through the Jewish nation, 
were derived from a special, preternatural source. Dismiss- 
ing the idea of the constitutional religious superiority of the 
Semitish tribes as a gratuitous assumption, I search through 
the history and existing condition of mankind ; and I ask, 
When and where besides have similar phenomena been exhib- 
ited ? If there be a tendency in human nature to develop a 
pure theism and the glory and loveliness of the highest Chris- 



13 

tian ethics, why has it not been seen in the many new exper- 
iments, so to speak, to which the race has been subjected 
along the lapse of six thousand years ? Nation after nation 
has sprung into existence, — continent after continent has 
been inhabited, — the innumerable islands and islets of the 
three great oceans have been peopled with human beings, — 
hundreds, if not thousands, of the most favorable opportunities 
have been presented to conduct the experiments on broad 
grand scales and on limited sheltered ones, and yet, as far as 
I can see, mankind, when left to their native impulses, have 
stood or have been receding at a hopeless distance from the 
abstract, perfect standard of religion and morals which exists 
in the Christian's Bible. Where on this earth has a nation 
or a race ever worked itself free from idolatry, and ascended 
into a spiritual worship and obedience towards the Deity, 
except through some influence which can be distinctly traced 
to a Jewish or a Christian origin ? The largest and most 
striking process of this kind was the more than imperial es- 
tablishment of Mohammedanism ; and no more certainly 
does the crescent moon borrow her radiance from the sun, 
than did Mohammed receive his mental light from Palestine. 
Would a man among us venture to predict that the South 
Sea inlanders, if left to themselves, would ever develop the 
germs of the Christian system, and carry it to any practical 
height ? The very idea appears inadmissible. I cheerfully 
grant, that, in the writings of some of the heathen Greeks and 
Romans, there are wonderful approximations to Christian 
truths and principles. But why, when they found utterance 
and manifestation, did they fall dead-born upon the surround- 
ing world of contemporary hearts ? Are not the very instances 
adduced, therefore, but a new demonstration of our main po- 
sition ? These two most enlightened of nations, — these 
most resplendent gems of human history, — how far did they 
ever spontaneously embody, reproduce, vivify, and extend 
the principles which a few of their great intellects lighted 
upon ? How came both of those races, with two widely dif- 
ferent sorts of high civilization, and in their genius and char- 
acter radically different from each other, — how came they to 
continue wedded to their dark and odious superstitions, until 
they both, w 7 hen met by Christianity, at length rushed simul- 
taneously into one common stream of Hebrew culture ? 

This fact, at least, is another reply to the objection about 
the inefficiency of the Hebrew revelation. The son of So- 
2 



14 

phroniscus, indeed, like one born out of due time, dies a 
willing martyr to the truth ; but not a heathen altar falls in 
consequence, and the vast company of idolaters grovel on. 
The germs of Natural Religion, if indeed they were not gen- 
erated from an early revelation, beautiful and symmetrical 
as they were, perished as they fell upon the richest and ripest 
mould ; the germs of the two great Jewish eras, instinct with 
unconquerable life and vigor, penetrated even the crust of 
rock, and forced for themselves a broad and permanent foot- 
ing, though they are too far, alas ! as yet from having covered 
the entire surface with verdure and fruitage. There was ev- 
idently wanting for the former that creative, supernatural im- 
pulse which originally brought and accompanied into the 
world the patriarchal doctrine of the unity of God, and the 
specific spirit of Christian love. You, who are most familiar 
with the truly admirable writings of the classics, tell me, do 
you remember, from Homer to Marcellinus, any thing re- 
sembling the description of a Christian conversion to right- 
eousness ? An instance or two may be culled here and there, 
as we cull some rare curiosity ; but how far removed are 
even they from the conversion of a threat-breathing Saul of 
Tarsus, or the transformation of imbruted John Newtons in 
modern times ! Nor do the ethical, dramatic, historical, or 
philosophical writings of the ancients impress upon our minds 
any general image resembling that peculiar generous spirit of 
self-sacrificing love which shone forth from the earliest Chris- 
tians, and which down to our own day prompts so many to 
labor and suffer disinterestedly for the remote and unknown, 
as well as for those who are near at hand. The names of 
Martyr and Missionary belong exclusively to Christianity. 
Out of its depths alone arose the elevated and peculiar qual- 
ities which constitute the brightest phase of those two char- 
acters, — not the self-destruction or self-torment of the mad 
fanatic, — not the childish ambition of the mere proselyter, — 
but the calm resolution to endure every extremity of suffering 
for the truth, and that glowing love for the souls of men 
which causes its possessor to find in the wildest, remotest sol- 
itude something dearer than the joys of home, or. than the 
warm lights of social life. If the heroes of early antiquity 
toiled and endured mightily, it was for the benefit of them- 
selves or their clans. The Prometheus Enchained of iEschy- 
lus suffers sublimely, I know, for man ; but his vindictive, 
impatient, defying, almost godless spirit, contrasts unfavora- 



15 

bly even with the Prometheus Unbound of the infidel Shelley, 
who owed so much to the light which he disowned. The 
much blazoned sentiment of Terence, which he puts into the 
mouth of one of his personages, about taking an interest in 
every thing human, bears no original application to any thing 
like Christian benevolence, nor is it employed to illustrate 
such a sentiment, but is simply uttered to apologize for the 
curiosity which one person feels in the daily occupations of 
another. Can we conceive of Plutarch finding anywhere in 
ancient life a subject like Howard ? Could the whole 
course of heathen history and experience evolve any such 
picture of humble life as the " Cotter's Saturday Night " ? 
In short, form to yourselves an abstract conception of what 
obviously constitutes the essence of the Christian character, — 
that union of a fervent piety with sanctified affections and a 
breathing charity, — that solemn sense of the invisible and 
eternal world, — that tenderness of conscience, — that blended 
humility and self-respect, — that sweet patience and cheerful- 
ness in suffering. — that forgiveness extended to insult or 
injury, — that lofty self-denial, — and all connected with a 
willing, scrupulous, active prosecution of every personal and 
social duty, — and then say if you could extract out of the 
whole range of heathen literature, delightful and perfect as it 
may be in its separate type and sphere, the ingredients of a 
character which should match your expressed ideal of Chris- 
tianity. 

Strength is still added to this line of argument, by observ- 
ing, that all efforts and expectations, in Christian countries, 
to arrive at moral and spiritual results superior to plain, 
original Christianity, have proved abortive. Who now cher- 
ishes any hope for mankind from advancing civilization and 
refinement, if unblended with and unsanctified by Christian- 
ity ? What else are the most benignant tendencies and de- 
velopments of the age, — the improvement and extension of 
education, — the active interest cherished in the poor and 
helpless, — the securing of political rights for the humblest 
individuals, — but mere coincidences with the elements of that 
religion ? No scientific treatise on Moral Philosophy, how- 
ever popular for a time it may have been rendered by cir- 
cumstances, is universally acknowledged as a standard author- 
ity. The nearer any such treatise approaches to simple, 
inflexible Christianity, the more generally unquestioned are 
its decisions. One of the strongest proofs of the divinity of 



16 

Christianity is, that the very writers who deny it that attri- 
bute, in attempting to elicit from the principles of human na- 
ture a perfect system of religion and morals, are obliged at 
last to refer their new discoveries to that religion as a stand- 
ard, than which they can find or conceive of nothing nearer 
perfection. Those many aspiring schemes, likewise, which 
aim to reconstruct religion and society upon some new basis, 
appear to owe whatever is really valuable and practically 
available in them to primitive Christianity. The ambitious 
waters, in their restless dashings, never rise a hair's breadth 
above the level of their distant source. The whole body of 
Romish traditions contributed to form no character equal, 
certainly none superior, to those of plain, Bible-reading Prot- 
estantism. The best features of chivalry are but identical 
with the true spirit of the Gospel. The gorgeous imagination 
and elaborate spiritual apparatus of Swedenborg, so attractive 
to many amiable persons of a particular cast of mind, involve, 
in their mystic convolutions, no shred of principle better than 
what the New Testament had already prepared for the hum- 
blest understandings. The efforts to regenerate society on 
the modern plans of association aim at nothing higher than 
to diffuse the spirit and blessings of Christian equity by new 
external forms and relative arrangements of life. Nay, even 
when some mind is stimulated by Mesmeric agency, and with 
the assistance of the boldest philosophies of the day, amidst 
a wilderness of extravagant errors and assumptions, promises 
to construct a new order of life and religion on the ruins of 
former ones, — like other attempts with a similar object, its 
highest-wrought imaginings can propose nothing more attrac- 
tive, nothing more likely to bless the world, than the simple 
life of Jesus and the teachings of his Gospel. Thus we see 
that all these strainings, contortions, and novel moods of the 
human mind, whether grave or fantastic, delusive or benign, 
involve no higher results than those proposed and actually 
instituted by the Saviour and his apostles. As Dr. Arnold 
has declared of our race, that no more history can be written, 
because there are no new ethnographic features of it to be 
described, so we may say, that, Christianity being equal 
to the utmost moral capabilities and needs of mankind, no 
purer or loftier developments are to be expected, at least 
until another organic moral epoch is vouchsafed and intro- 
duced by the hand of God. 

To conclude this whole separate argument with the direct- 



17 

est possible appeal to every one's consciousness and expe- 
rience ; — we all remember what we were in earliest child- 
hood, and what we probably should have been without the 
more or less direct influences of a Christian education ; we 
all know the capacities and dispositions of our very youthful 
contemporaries in regard to religion. Suppose, then, that a 
numerous colony of children, let them be Jewish or Christian, 
Oriental or Occidental, descendants of Shem, Ham, or Ja- 
pheth, consisting of both sexes, and having as yet received 
no religious or moral instructions or impressions whatever, 
should be left by themselves in some country yet uninhab- 
ited, but where the climate, the productions, and other cir- 
cumstances, should insure their continued existence and 
their advance into manhood. Here certainly would be hu- 
man nature under conditions no less, if not more, favorable 
than any which philosophy assigns to the early and barbarous 
portions of mankind. These children would at least possess 
hereditary, constitutional advantages superior to what those 
portions could ever have enjoyed. Now, granting a vague 
religious capacity and sentiment to exist within them, can we 
conceive that any thing better than fungi would ever appear 
as the consequence, — some Peruvian worship of the sun, or 
some Scandinavian conception of a Valhalla ? Can we 
imagine it possible that either they or their descendants 
would ever develop a system of religion and morals ap- 
proaching that which may be deduced from the Bible ? 
How soon would they evolve their legislator of the dec- 
alogue, — with his profound perception of the constituent rela- 
tions of social life, — with his sublime and ultimate philosoph- 
ical conception of the great I Am, — with his picture of 
creation, conforming in so many particulars to the order 
which should be verified by geological discoveries four thou- 
sand years later, — with his remarkable suggestion of the Deity 
resting from his works, a suggestion also subsequently con- 
firmed by the observed and unquestionable cessation of new 
creative processes ? When would arise among them the like 
of that perfect Being, at the very thought of whom, before 
his name is pronounced, so many hearts here present thrill 
with unspeakable reverence and affection, and whose image 
is too deeply enstamped even on this imperfect, sinful world 
to be ever obliterated ? For my own part, I can conceive 
that such results would arise from such circumstances, only 
on the supposition of some superhuman impulses, different 
2* 



18 

from any thing belonging to our ordinary nature and experi- 
ence, and 1 am therefore again shut up to the conclusion, 
that the higher religion of mankind, as I find it at this 
moment, sprang from certain direct Divine interpositions. 
Will it be said, that neither would the colony in question 
produce a Newton's Principia ? I grant it. But if you 
could first communicate to them the power of Christianity, 
with its stimulating and elevating effects on the human mind, 
a Newton's Principia might then arise, as it did before un- 
der similar influences. Not so, however, the converse of the 
proposition ; the intellectual ability to produce a Newton's 
Principia would by no means secure the evolution of the 
moral and spiritual phenomena connected with Christianity. 

A fourth general consideration again conducts me to the 
same central point. The religious principles and influences, 
which we have seen thus introduced into the world, are not 
maintained in it with the facility and uniformity which we 
should have reason to expect, if they were the spontaneous 
fruits of human nature. They seem to require perpetual 
attention and indefatigable culture. The interest in them 
is constantly prone to languish, even when their supreme 
and vital importance is not denied. Accordingly, it is ac- 
knowledged (and this fact also explains the slow progress 
of revelation before noticed) that they do decay and dis- 
appear both from extensive regions and from multitudes of 
individual hearts. To preserve them in their fulness and 
vigor, an uninterrupted machinery of moral means is re- 
quired, — teachings, persuasions, warnings, an improvement 
of the afflictions of life, sedulous self-culture, forms of wor- 
ship, lofty example. Now the influences of these things 
do not u grow like the grass." On the contrary, they have 
manifestly the nature of engraftings. But that which does 
grow like the grass is a forgetfulness of the Being who 
commanded the Israelites to have no other gods than himself, 
and a departure from the standard of character and life incul- 
cated by Christianity. Very soon would our Far West, for 
instance, very soon would many a neighbourhood at home, 
relapse into a species of heathenism, if these efforts at coun- 
teraction ceased to be made by those who are already imbued 
with the spirit of the Gospel. The mighty exertions de- 
manded and employed to resist these retrograde propensi- 
ties are just what we should antecedently expect would 
require to be made, if a restorative principle were about 



19 

to be supernaturally introduced among men. I conclude, 
therefore, that an influence which is so difficult to be main- 
tained on earth, and which is, as it were, incessantly on the 
point of centrifugal departure, could never spontaneously 
or naturally have found its way into the soil, which, while 
it remains, it subdues and blesses.* 

I have already referred to the separate creative processes 
in the ancient natural world, to refute the preliminary objec- 
tion of the school of Hume against the interruption of the 
supposed order of nature. I now refer to the same pro- 
cesses as a fifth and last positive argument in proof of the 
fact of a special revelation. As the Deity had specially 
interposed to repair, arrange, and extend the material crea- 
tion by the introduction of successive classes of organized 
bodies, there is a commanding presumption that he would 
also specially interpose to elevate, educate, and transform 
the moral agents on whom he has conferred a being. This 
presumption is heightened and even verified by the fact, that 
he has given more freedom to his moral than to his material 
creation ; that he has not bound it down by such immediate, 
sequential, self-executed, stringent, and unalterable laws as 
he has the other ; in short, that he has empowered his moral 
creation partially to frustrate the purposes and principles 
of its own constitution. Now, since all must confess that 

* The author of the Discourse before referred to himself acknowledges 
the long, difficult, and often bloody struggles which religious truth lias 
been obliged to incur in advancing from lower to higher stages of its prog- 
ress, — say, from fetichism and polytheism to monotheism. He repre- 
sents it as a destiny which human nature viust pass through. Must is his 
imperative and significant word (p. 98). Now, if we allow any plan and 
purpose at all to the agency of the Deity, — if we do not resolve the 
whole history and fortunes of our race into a matter of vague chance, this 
same word must involves all which the advocate of a special revelation 
would demand. It implies a separate, exceptional tendency warring 
against and overcoming the general tendencies of human nature. Give to 
that exceptional tendency the character of intelligent design, instead of a 
blind, brute law, and allow it to commence at any assignable point of time, 
and you meet the advocates of revelation on common and satisfactory 
ground. The author of the Discourse, in fact, represents these arduous and 
bloody triumphs of truth as obtained " under the guidance of Divine Provi- 
dence " (p. 95). Why, then, should he arraign the Jehovah of the He- 
brews for sanctioning or commanding the extermination of idolatry by terri- 
ble severities ? On what principle does that system, which is so revolting 
when enacted by the special command of the Deity, become healthy, neces- 
sary, and adorable, when conducted in a more general way by Divine 
Providence ? Perhaps, to be consistent, the author must join company 
with M. Comte, and so banish from his inductions, banish from his uni- 
verse, every trace of moral and spiritual design. 



20 

this liberty has been often and sadly employed, it is evident 
that there was both room and need for special revelations 
and influences. As the Deity had already acted in past 
epochs and conjunctures where his interposition was re- 
quired, I conclude that he must also have acted in conjunc- 
tures where vastly higher interests were at stake. He had 
permitted the will of man to introduce virtual contingencies 
and frustrations of limited laws into definite points of time 
and space. How else, then, could he secure his eternal and 
unalterable wider laws, but by employing, when the occasions 
arrived, his own controlling will on definite points also of 
time and space ? 

Here, then, I would rest, as on the culminating point of 
my argument. The position at which I have arrived ap- 
pears to me to involve the true philosophy of a supernatural 
revelation, and to preclude all higher generalizations which 
may be advanced as objections against it. We find a race 
of created beings, gifted with spiritual natures, subjected, 
indeed, in part to material laws, and in part to laws of in- 
stinct and involuntary suggestion, both which kinds of laws, 
it is true, if left to themselves, invariably fulfil the purposes 
of their constitution. But their higher spiritual natures have 
no such unalterable tendencies. And the fundamental error 
of those who reject the idea of a special revelation is, I 
apprehend, the confounding of the laws of man's spiritual 
nature with the material laws of the universe, and imagining 
that the principles of both must be identical. The very 
liberty of going astray is what constitutes the superiority of 
spiritual to material natures, because it is connected also 
with the liberty of self-control, — of self-originated movement 
and improvement, — and of graspings at absolute perfection, 
— none of which can be ascribed to matter or instinct. 
To say that God has provided as uniform and universal 
a supply for the wants of the one as for those of the other 
is not to vindicate the prerogatives of our spiritual nature, 
but it is to degrade them to the lowest mechanical necessi- 
tarianism. There are, indeed, certain higher laws and limits, 
which even spiritual natures cannot transgress. But within 
those limits, they are absolute ; they are permitted, by a 
singular but unquestionable contradiction, essentially ascriba- 
ble to such natures, to retard, violate, disturb, change, the 
proximate purposes of their being. And this they in fact 
do on a definite, limited theatre of the universe. Having 



21 

within them, as I delight to acknowledge, the elements of 
pure religion and moral perfection, they spontaneously refrain 
from their development, or subject the exercise of them to 
guilty abuse. Unless, therefore, at this point, absolute meets 
absolute, — unless something more than the ordinary influx of 
perpetual Divine inspiration is salient as occasion demands, — 
unless the Highest of spiritual beings can be supposed occa- 
sionally to intervene on that very definite theatre, to control 
and aid by new influences the wills which he has created free, 
and so secure the execution of his wider purposes, — he is 
himself a manacled slave of necessity, — he is no more the 
being who called the amphibious reptile from the earth at 
the very moment when the waters were subsiding from its 
surface, and who created long afterwards, at a definite point 
of time, the solid-footed quadruped and man, when a dry, 
upheaved continent permitted them to roam through its ver- 
dant plains. To say that there can or need be no new 
special inspiration, superadded to the ordinary general inspi- 
ration already imparted to every man, is tantamount to say- 
ing, that, when the earth is ready for new creations, the glory 
and purposes of the Deity may be sufficiently secured by 
the old crawling, mucilaginous natures already in existence. 
Who will venture to affirm, that, throughout the future ages 
of eternity and the possible realms of space, the Creator 
will never commence a new process, — never start a new 
train of being, — never originate some new and specific im- 
pulse ? But if he may do this, it is hard to say why the 
Tellurian planet, the land of Palestine, and the date of 
Augustus or Tiberius Csesar's reign, must be precluded from 
his benignant interposition. 

Thus the idea of a supernatural revelation appears to 
harmonize with the most expanded views we can take of 
existence. So far from being traceable to any low, limited, 
or superstitious tendency in the human mind, it may fairly 
retort on the antagonist theory the charge of a purblind, 
contracted survey of the walks of being. Rising, indeed, to 
a certain factitious height, we may be induced to reject and 
spurn this precious idea ; but ascending to a point still lof- 
tier and more commanding, our comprehensive, serene, and 
enlightened vision finds for it an appropriate, a glorious place 
in the vast panorama of things. To reject it is to tie the 
Creator's hand with a cord of invincible destiny ; to admit 
it is to recognize in him a boundless and absolute freedom 
to interfere with and regulate the free. 



22 

Nor, without a death-struggle, could I be disposed to 
part with a belief in this great reality, notwithstanding the 
attempt to assure me that there are equivalent resources in 
the unaided moral and religious elements of my nature. 
Say what you please of the grand deductions of reason con- 
cerning the existence and attributes of the Deity and his 
relations to the human soul, — and you can say much, very 
much, to kindle an adoring admiration, — yet, without some 
belief in his occasional, special, personal interposition, he will 
virtually remain at an awful, infinite distance from man. 
From eternity to eternity he will seem to maintain a gloomy, 
inviolable silence. His inexorable law sweeps by, and 
buries and annihilates us beneath its absorbing generality. 
To say that God speaks to us from nature is but metaphor 
and poetry. In vain will you point to the beauties and glo- 
ries of the universe, and its marks of evident design. Un- 
less self-deceived, you cannot say that you are satisfied 
with them. Man, from his inmost being, craves some spe- 
cialty, some perceptible demonstration of God's interest in 
him. Without it, he is still alone, alone ! He calls aloud 
in anguish on the mute heavens, on the unconscious flowers, 
on the sullen ocean, to speak but one word, to breathe but 
one whisper, to exhibit one faint smile or token, in order 
to assure him that the God whom he adores and admires 
is also the loving Father whom he may love. And when 
this deep want of his being, which is as much entitled and 
as likely as any other want to be answered by the good 
Creator, is supplied, — when the voice of the Past, en- 
shrined among the noblest inheritances and most authentic 
monuments of our race, proclaims to his mind the inestima- 
ble fact, — then that Hand, which before, in dim vision, 
he saw coldly wielding the unalterable forces of nature, seems 
to draw near, and to press, with a paternal, gentle tender- 
ness, on his very head. Before, religion was but a mass 
of bewildering, impalpable abstractions ; now, it is a con- 
crete, — a thing, — a subject of time and space, like man, 
its living throne. The lights that gleam out from the con- 
cave sphere of existence around him are now brought down 
to a burning focus on his heart. Creation appears in new 
and brighter aspects, happier attitudes, more visible smiles; 
— a spark has lighted up the heavens. Prayer now finds 
a spot to kneel upon, and an opening in the motionless 
curtain around, through which, in well-founded hope, it can 



23 

direct its eye. How could it find them before ? Give me 
all the uncertainties, difficulties, and perplexities of the Bible, 
with its celestial truths shining through on my searching rea- 
son and faith, rather than leave me alone with universalities 
and generalizations, presenting a wall before my eyes, as 
wide as the world, and as high as the firmament. The idea, 
that the soul of man is naturally sufficient for its own relig- 
ious necessities, is contradicted by the facts of universal con- 
sciousness. Question the most profoundly religious natures 
both of the past and the present ; they will tell you, that just 
in proportion to the prevalence of that sentiment within them 
do they look out of themselves, and expect and long for 
some assurance from a higher source than what is denomi- 
nated nature. 

Revelation, I allow, cannot suppress, dispense with, or 
supersede the great original principles and sentiments of 
moral and religious obligation, but it can awaken, stimulate, 
and sanctify them ; it can arouse and fix a new attention 
to them, a new interest in them, a new consciousness of 
them, — can give them new strength, right directions, sur- 
round them with more impressive sanctions ; it can con- 
centrate their scattered suggestions and influences, and it can 
make that to be flower and fruit which before was only 
slumbering seed. 

With regard to the Bible as the medium of this Divine 
revelation, I cannot here begin a discussion respecting its 
contents, structure, authenticity, and inspiration. To inti- 
mate my general views on these topics, I would only ob- 
serve, that the miraculous events recorded in the Scriptures 
are but harmonious appendages to the very idea of a special 
revelation ; and further, that as the original communication 
of Divine influences was not such as to overwhelm the indi- 
viduality and freedom of those to whom they were made, 
the germs of Revelation have accordingly descended to us, 
blended with the limited philosophy and imperfect ethics of 
an infantile and barbarous state of the world. And, happily, 
there are points of view in which these things can be in- 
structively considered, without warranting or calling for the 
complacent commentaries of buffoonery and derision. The 
very imperfections, critical, ethical, and philosophical, which 
we may be led to ascribe to the Bible, also oblige us to in- 
quire how it came to pass that the highest truths of abso- 
lute religion and of perfect morals are found imbedded in a 



24 

matrix of less ethereal substance. The true answer can but 
fall back upon and corroborate the positions maintained in 
the present lecture. 

A comprehensive, generous, discriminating philosophy, 
sympathizing with the infirmities and capacities of human 
nature, following the various phases of its history and desti- 
ny, and recognizing the omnipotence and sovereignty of an 
unfettered Deity, will find no difficulty in accepting the Bible 
as the medium of a special revelation. While searching in 
it earnestly for the pearl of great price, it will regard as val- 
uable even the protecting casket, without which the jewel 
itself could not, from the very nature and condition of the 
race, have floated down the tide of circumstance. Nor will 
it be deterred by the difficulty of separating what is address- 
ed to the general spiritual necessities of our nature from that 
which is local, temporary, and obsolete. It is, indeed, a pe- 
culiar glory and excellence of Scriptural Revelation, that it 
addresses the judgment and reason of man, — that it thus 
helps to educate as well as to inspire him, — that it exer- 
cises his powers of discrimination, and calls upon his moral 
and religious sense to recognize and obey those great eternal 
truths, principles, and commands which appertain to the 
perfection of his being. Therefore let us accept the Bible 
as a manual of faith and practice, in no narrow, restricted, 
slavish sense, but in that broad, comprehensive, reasonable 
light which itself hath kindled. True, there will be vast 
conflicts of opinion. True, there are as yet no prospects 
of a combined general freedom and unanimity. But at least 
a life is kept scintillating in our spiritual nature, which has 
been struck by the Bible alone. And if ever a novum or- 
ganum of religious science shall be discovered, by which 
these warring contradictions can be reconciled, — if ever 
arches can be happily sprung from opposite pillars of belief to 
meet in common centres of acknowledged truth, it can still 
be effected only through that divine logic of charity, for 
which the Bible, out of its exhaustless resources, propheti- 
cally and amply provides. 

Young men of this University ! I have endeavoured to 
elucidate and fortify by argument that belief in an external 
revelation, which the most, if not all of you, brought hither 
from your homes. If I have personally failed in my imme- 
diate design, yet remember that the numerous evidences of 
Christianity, as exhibited by more fortunate advocates, are 



25 

not in consequence at all impeached. As your minds ex- 
pand, and as, with the triumph of conscious strength, you 
advance in your philosophical speculations from one gener- 
alization to another, you may be tempted to resolve the out- 
ward, special revelation vouchsafed by the Deity into the 
universal sentiments or capacities of religion implanted in the 
soul. But I have aimed to show you that there are wider 
generalizations still, spreading up into the spiritual world, and 
which, recognizing at once the freedom of God and the free- 
dom of man, leave ample room and necessity for any imme- 
diate communications he chooses to make. That he has 
created you with religious capacities, so far from precluding 
the idea that he would visit your race with extraordinary acts 
of love and mercy, affords, on the contrary, the strongest pre- 
sumption in its favor. It is your religious nature, — that 
nature which soars above all circumstance, transporting you 
beyond the fixed conditions of the material universe, and in- 
troducing you into the presence of the absolute Cause of all 
things, — it is this which entitles you to expect, and prompts 
you to welcome, and commands you to obey, the special 
manifestations of your Creator, at any point or moment along 
the range of being which his infinite wisdom may please to 
select. Indulge, then, by all means, in the loftiest, freest 
excursions of your native moral and spiritual powers, — lis- 
ten with unabated attention to the spontaneous promptings 
of the inward monitor, — study, as long as you breathe, 
the benignant, glorious purposes of God in the wide world 
of nature, in the ascending, terraced walks of science, in 
the gladsome or pensive experiences of life, in the stern 
and patient prosecution of duty. But disdain not, at the 
same time, that external light and aid which are intended to 
animate your languid pursuit of excellence, and to chasten 
and restrain the ungovernable impulses of self. The inspir- 
ed lessons of Scripture, falling on a soil of religious sensibil- 
ity, have hitherto conducted the human character to the 
highest perfection yet attained on earth. The just thought, 
that the great substantive duties of life have been enjoined by 
a positive revelation, no less than by a native inward light, 
affords exactly that controlling force which, consistently 
with its inborn freedom, aids in retaining the soul in an un- 
broken moral orbit. Alike hopeless and dangerous is the 
attempt to remand men exclusively to the spontaneous dic- 
tates of their unassisted nature. It has failed thousands of 
3 



26 

times over, and it will fail again and again. And the reason 
is simply this : — the selfsame human spirit which breathes 
these dictates of natural religion also whispers, with an ab- 
solute and inexorable tyranny, the suggestions that urge to 
disobedience and sin. Surely man needs, then, some arbiter, 
some counterpoise, some outward voice, which shall pro- 
claim to his conscience, Thou shall obey, — thou shalt not 
transgress ! The predominant tendency of the Scriptures, 
produced under the peculiar circumstances that have been 
dwelt upon in this lecture, whatever difficulties may attend 
their subordinate details, is in every way concurrent with 
such a voice. Both the child and the philosopher may com- 
prehend and feel its import. Happy, my young brethren, 
will it be with us, if it shall fall ever on our ears with dis- 
tinct, commanding, and heavenward-urging accents. 

Before bidding farewell to these venerated shades, I must 
pause for one solemn and affecting moment. Twenty-nine 
years ago this genial month, the counsels of the paternal 
Kirkland directed my steps to the distant spot which sum- 
moned me to the tranquil and consecrated labors of a life. 
During that period, what dream-like changes have extended 
over our whole community ! With the new-born genera- 
tions that occupy the places of their fathers in opposite 
quarters of our Confederacy, have also arisen entirely new 
and often recoiling phases of public opinion. Ancient en- 
deared affinities and connections have been overwhelmed by 
the advancing tide. Complicated problems throw a thick- 
ening shadow over the destiny of our common country. Our 
swelling pride at the unequalled grandeur of her power and 
extent is chastened and rebuked by the remembrance of her 
indefinite, unsettled outline, her heterogeneous elements, her 
impulsive, experimental existence. A religious and consci- 
entious patriotism, anxiously surveying the present and peer- 
ing into the future, asks, What are its relations and what its 
duties towards those expanding myriads whom our teeming 
country and overburdened, agitated Europe are pouring along 
our yet unlimited territories ? What is to be the fate of civ- 
ilization, of Christianity, of the cause of human happiness, in 
this mysterious land ? We have each a personal concern m 
the decision of these great questions, and, as we part under 
the weight of such trying responsibilities, it is but fitting that 
we should engage for each other the pledge of Christian sym- 
pathy and prayer. 



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